President Obama officially joined Twitter today with a brand-new President of the United States (POTUS) account. White House officials have always used social media to reach out to the public to communicate policy updates but Obama has widely stayed out of the loop, instead posting occasionally to the White House account and signing with his initials “BO.” Now Obama is fully embracing the platform with the @POTUS account, even tweeting his first message using an iPhone registered with the Executive Office of the President — not a device Obama regularly uses.

Obama’s typical mode of communication is a highly-secure Blackberry, that the government won’t say is capable or not of posting tweets.

The new @POTUS account belongs to the government and the next president will take it over in 2017. According to a White House blog post, the account is meant to “serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people." However, Buzzfeed reports while Obama will tweet and add followers, he will not engage in direct messaging.